The Ambassador of the United States of America to Australia recently complained about this “plain theft” by Australians, but recent developments suggests that things are not going to change anytime soon.

Delimiter reports that the Australian pay TV company Foxtel has signed a deal with HBO to become the exclusive provider for the show.

“Under the arrangement pay per view opportunities to see HBO dramas will be possible after the broadcast of the last program in a series,” Foxtel’s spokesperson says.

“However, in the case of season 3 of Game of Thrones and season 6 of True Blood (but not subsequent series of either show) pay per view is possible 24 hours after the broadcast of individual episodes.”

This deal means that Game of Thrones will be pulled from iTunes, and that starting next year fans will have to wait weeks before they can watch it via pay-per-view.

This situation will be comparable to the United States, where recent Game of Thrones episodes can’t be watched without an HBO subscription. Apparently,

It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to predict that the Game of Thrones piracy will shoot up again next year. We’ll certainly keep an eye on it.